Broken in Three Places
by drinktea
Summary: Athrun lay on the shore of some island he didn't care to know the name of. He'd be dead soon anyway. What did it matter. Rated for language.


_Disclaimer: Gundam Seed does not belong to me._

Author natterings: I wrote this one afternoon after wondering what happened to Athrun during his downtime away from the battlefront, after he fought and supposedly killed Kira, and before he met Cagalli. Here it is. English version names. Thank you for reading. 

- 

_Well, you've done it, you bastard. You've killed the best friend you ever had._

Athrun lay on the shore of some island he didn't care to know the name of. He'd be dead soon anyway. What did it matter. 

His left arm was broken in three places, he knew on Coordinator instinct. A normal human might not be able to tell anything aside from the pain, but Athrun could feel it - the ulna, the smaller forearm bone, snapped in two places, the radius, the larger bone, cracked at the very least. He was bleeding, though not very much. His stupid blood clot too well. Stupid Coordinator blood. 

Even though it hurt like hell to do it, made his arm sing strongly with pain, he closed his fist, tight. He was clenching his jaw and he didn't realize it. Oh, God, he was crying. The saltwater got into the cuts on his face and stung, neutralizing the infectious dirt. He hoped it didn't. He hoped he'd die in any number of ways. Infection, though ugly, would do the trick. 

Maybe, when he died, he would find Nicol. He would apologize and apologize and call himself a good-for-nothing friend, and Nicol would smile and shake his head and say nothing was anyone's fault. 

_"Oh, Athrun, hey. I meant to thank you for coming the other day... Come on, you were sleeping."_

Oh, God, Nicol. He didn't deserve to die that way. Not so young, with such good humor and such promise and such a good, good heart. He was so good, Athrun thought. So much better than Athrun was. It shouldn't have been Nicol. _He was..._

He was like Kira. The thought sparked painfully across Athrun's senses. He pounded his fist into the rough gravel and felt the stone bite into his flesh, his nerves twanging with pain, but it was no good. It couldn't take away from his _other_ pain. He clung to the last blurry remnants of consciousness he'd ever have. His ejection pod was perfect silver, crushed, manmade against imperfect grey rock. The smell of smoke and animal shit was blown through by saltwater. The ocean lapped at his feet, blue beyond, but up close, tinted brown and sandy by the loose rocks of the shore. His suit kept him dry, but not warm. His toes were numb. Maybe the sea would carry him away. 

All around, all around, he could feel the cold water now. It sunk into the spaces between the delicate cartilage of his ears, tangled his hair and fanned it out around him. Maybe he could spin and sink. 

Nicol was like Kira. Nicol played the piano like an angel, the music a splash of pure water across the neck and face. Kira moved like a bird, quick and sure and with eyes so focussed. Athrun had made Kira a bird. He simultaneously felt the want to destroy it and build a million others. 

When he died, he would find Kira. And maybe the bird would be sitting on his shoulder, like an extension of his being. And it would light from him, soaring and twittering mechanically, and dart back and forth, from Kira to Athrun, and maybe it would feel like forgiveness. His tears - maybe they could tell Kira what his words couldn't. That he was sorry. He was sorry, but Kira had killed Nicol, and Athrun had to do something, because it was kill or be killed... 

_You idiot._ He closed his eyes, told himself to shut up. _You idiot._

If he could turn back time, he would. But what way was there to stop anything? He could've forced Kira to come with him, to the side of the PLANTS. But then Kira could've froze everytime, locked at the prospect of battling his former comrades. If he could turn back time, what was there he could do? 

If he could love better, he would. But what was love against a sword, a gun, a bomb? Love: a flimsy emotion, subject to jealousy and time and a million other factors. But still. If he was full of love, he would have appreciated them as they deserved. If instead of carrying revenge and bitterness and hate he carried love, hope might have come with him, instead of this trail of disgusting ruin. He had only enough love to feel a rip, a tear without them there. But then, wasn't it worse to not love at all? To die like this, free of pain? _Wasn't that worse?_

He lost consciousness. But not before he saw, dancing across the rippling blue of the water, the white of paper and the black of notes, and a flash the precise green of a bird he had made with his own hands, long ago. 


End file.
